Pretty Goes with Pretty

Soundtrack to a Marriage

Today is our tenth wedding anniversary. Ten years! A few things have happened since then: moved from Arizona to New York to start our life together. Found great jobs and great friends while we were there. Jill schooled me on classic films. We lived in a giant empty loft in an industrial building in Williamsburg with little more than a mattress and two incredibly uncomfortable kitchen chairs. We moved to another part of Brooklyn and had a super named Ralph who'd say things like "Yous Guys." I tried to write a novel. We went to Paris in 2004--Jill's first time to Europe. We lived in Nolita in an apartment with a fantastic closet but a bed three feet from the ceiling. We moved to Los Angeles in 2005 and put some roots down, moved our careers forward. We embraced the beauty of LA--hikes through the hills, beaches in the fall. We got lost in a bamboo forest on Maui. We started doing weird things like exercising. I became a tennis fan. We went to Greece for two weeks and it was the most beautiful trip I've ever been on. We had Cooper. Jill became a runner--she went from not being able to run for more than a couple minutes to running a half marathon in a little over two hours, eight months later. Among other things.

I could make a hundred different mixes to describe our last ten years together, but I've settled on this one because it feels like time traveling. For every year that we've been married, I've chosen a song or an artist that we, as a unit, played the hell out of in that year. Some of these songs we still play the hell out of, others we haven't listened to in forever. Some years had a lot of contenders, others didn't.

• 2001 | Bjork: Hidden Place
• 2002 | The Decemberists: Shiny
• 2003 | The Radio Dept.: Where Damage Isn't Already Done
• 2004 | Feist: Mushaboom
• 2005 | The Ruby Lee: Skies as Blue
• 2006 | Midlake: Head Home
• 2007 | Andrew Bird: Heretics
• 2008 | Little Joy: The Next Time Around
• 2009 | Animal Collective: Bluish
• 2010 | The Radio Dept.: This Time Around

I don't think there is a qualifying song for 2011, or not yet. So let's conclude the mix by taking it back to this day, ten years ago, to our first dance.

• Low: Two-Step

60s Six Pack

I love my iTunes smart playlists, especially my "60s Best" group, which gathers every song in my library made between 1960 and 1969 that I've rated four or five stars. Currently that count sits at 1,280 songs. Of all my smart playlists this one most consistently turns in great mixes. I was playing it yesterday and it spun out this series of gems, including my favorite Donovan song and Hearts & Flowers' "Try for the Sun," which I realized on hearing last night might be one of my top five all-time favorite songs.

• Monks: Monk Chant (1966)
• Donovan: To Sing for You (1965)
• Reparata & The Delrons: Whenever a Teenager Cries (1965)
• The Melodians:Rivers Of Babylon (1969)
• Townes Van Zandt: I'll Be Here in the Morning (1969)
• Hearts & Flowers: Try for the Sun (1968)

This Week's Soundtrack

T. Rex: Electric Warrior
Tom T. Hall: Country Songs for Children
Unknown Mortal Orchestra: s/t (3)
Feist: Let It Die
Moon Duo: Mazes (2)
Eleanor Friedberger: Last Summer
The Sea & Cake: The Fawn
R.E.M.: Document

Of course I've been listening to my share of R.E.M. this week after the news came out that they'd called it quits after thirty-one years together. Most of my listening has been to their entire discography on shuffle, though this morning I put on Document and played it the whole way through--probably my favorite R.E.M. album next to Automatic for the People. R.E.M. is dead, long live R.E.M.

• R.E.M.: Welcome to the Occupation

Extreme Volume is Nerd-Macho

 
The old basketball star walks gingerly on aching knees. Me? My ears ring.

Jon Fine, of the band Bitch Magnet, writes about rock-induced hearing loss for the Atlantic. I'm really glad Bitch Magnet has reunited (temporarily?), though it sounds like they'll only play ATP in Europe and maybe some additional European tour dates. Temporary Residence is reissuing both of their albums in November; they are one of the most overlooked indie bands of the early '90s, so I'm glad to see the albums come back in print. You can find them on Facebook if you want to keep up with tour/reissue updates.

 

I Was Dancing Since I Was...

In the last month or two Cooper has become a lot more cognizant of the music he is hearing. This may or may not have to do with the fact that we've begun listening to actual children's music in the house with greater regularity. Tom T. Hall's Country Songs for Children is the go-to, thanks to Spotify, though we also have a compilation called Play Music that was assembled by a local place that does music classes, which Coop was attending for a while. That's the album he really goes ape for. The other day I sang him a line from a song from that album and he jumped up, ran into the living room, pointed at the computer and said this, this, this—i.e., I need to hear that song now.

My objections to bona fide kids' music have faded in the last year and a half, though I will say that last night I woke up at 4 am and could not go back to sleep—I had work stress at front of mind, but soundtracked by the lines "Hello boys / It's great to see you once more / Hello girls / I can't wait to hear your voices soar." The two replaying thoughts intertwined was a special kind of torment that kept me up until about 6:30; then I fell asleep before Coop woke up at 7. Luckily it was a weekend so I was able to sleep in a little since my brilliant wife graciously took the wake-up duties.

Anyway, at the same time Cooper is becoming more aware of non-children's music, too. He loves "Barbara Ann" and attempts to sing along with it. (He says "Ba Ba Ba," almost on cue, but not to any melody.) But he does try to sing: if you ask him to sing he'll start saying "Mommy" or "Daddy" in a really high voice in a kind of meandering stairwell of a melody. Occasionally he'll also dance to songs we play around the house; his form of dancing is standing very thoughtfully and then half-squatting up and down a few times.

The highlight of the day, today, was while he was sitting in his high chair eating lunch and I turned on T. Rex's Electric Warrior. "Cosmic Dancer" came on and suddenly Coop just started swaying gently in his seat, as if he were in an arena ready to get his lighter out for the power ballad. It was beautiful.

• T. Rex: Cosmic Dancer

This Week's Soundtrack

Mountains: Air Museum
The Third Eye Foundation: The Dark
Play Music: Orange Sessions 2
Harry Belafonte: Calypso
Simon & Garfunkel: Parsely, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme and Greatest Hits
Talk Talk: Laughing Stock
Moon Duo: Mazes
Unknown Mortal Orchestra: s/t

Good news: a day after I wrote my Talk Talk post, I received an email letting me know that both Laughing Stock and Mark Hollis' solo album are going to be reissued on vinyl on October 11 via Ba Da Bing Records! That'll be my incentive to finally pick up the solo album, which I've yet to hear.

Right Now I Feel Recycled

Song of the week so far, for me, is Superchunk's "From the Curve," from On the Mouth. It came up on shuffle yesterday as I was walking home from a stressful day at work and had the dual effect of giving me a little catharsis (as only 90s indie rock really can!) and hooking into the thought that's been going through my head lately of looking for some kind of fresh start, creatively speaking. What that fresh start is, I don't really know.

• Superchunk: From the Curve

Talking Talk Talk

There are many remarkable aspects to the story of Talk Talk’s fifth and final album, Laughing Stock. It took a year to make, and most of what was put to tape ended up on the scrapheap. In London’s Wessex Studios, where it was recorded, windows were blacked out, clocks removed, and light sources limited to oil projectors and strobe lights. Around fifty musicians contributed to its making, but only eighteen ended up on the finished album. It was a commercial failure, critically reviled as much as it was praised, and was impossible to perform live. Then the band broke up, forcing fans to wait seven years before its central protagonist released any new music, something followed by almost complete silence. Laughing Stock is also shrouded in mystery: apart from limited comments made during brief bursts of promotional activity to promote their own even more limited work since, the three authors of the record – Mark Hollis (songwriter and founder), Tim Friese-Greene (producer and co-songwriter since their third album, The Colour Of Spring) and Lee Harris (drums, and the only other remaining member of the band’s original line up by the time of Laughing Stock) – have refused to discuss it for years. But the music remains, its reputation growing with each passing year since its release two decades ago: stark, bold, indefinable and the greatest testament to the band.

Wyndham Wallace's article on Laughing Stock for the Quietus is a terrific overview of Talk Talk's progression from synthpop hitmakers to unparalleled aesthetes. I only vaguely know the story of Talk Talk and the difficulties in making their last two albums, owing to the fact that I'm a fairly new fan of the albums. After putting off hearing Spirit of Eden for years and years and years (for no real reason), I finally made a point to hear it while I was doing research for my book on Slint's Spiderland, since Spirit gets namechecked along with Spiderland (and Bark Psychosis' Hex) as being a progenitor of post-rock. Though I have a lot of misgivings with that genre tag, and with these albums as being the best appropriate reference points, I still couldn't rightly write about Slint's legacy without hearing these other oft-referenced albums too. Thank god I did! Both Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock are brilliant, brilliant works of art.

As Wallace describes it, I see some parallels between Slint and Talk Talk's crippling level of perfectionism. Slint was only in the studio for Spiderland for four days, but they spent two years laboring over their songs. The songwriting processes between the two bands was worlds apart, but the effect of focusing intensely on a small number of songs seems to have had the same result: the end of the band, and ostensibly the end of some members' music careers entirely.

Anyway, it's a great article and a good introduction to Talk Talk's story if you're not familiar. Both Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock are begging for the reissue treatment, given so many bands referencing their sound of late. Tthe Antlers and Wild Beasts spring to mind first, though Radiohead would be nowhere without Laughing Stock. Listen to "After the Flood": you think Jonny Greenwood's guitar would sound the way it does if he hadn't heard Laughing Stock?

 

This Week's Soundtrack

Low: C'mon
The Third Eye Foundation: The Dark
Wooden Shjips: Dos
Tim Hecker: Ravedeath, 1972
Play Music: Orange Sessions 2 (3)
Oneohtrix Point Never: Returnal
Arp: The Soft Wave
Disappears: Guider
Jason Urick: Husbands
The Beach Boys: Greatest Hits
The Everly Brothers: Greatest Hits

Some variation of this week's soundtrack has probably appeared at least three or four other times this year. That's because the bulk of the albums here are my go-tos for my soundtrack to writing or editing over long spells. All that's missing is probably a couple of Mountains albums and the latest Rene Hell. One of those albums, which I haven't listened to in a while, was the Oneohtrix Point Never album. That whole record remains outstanding, but the title track in particular struck me as towering over the rest of the album. Those albums that don't fit into that soundtrack were likely chosen as something to listen to with/around my son. He's reached the age where he's developed a desire to listen to music, and for the most part kids' music. If you sing him a line from one of the songs on that Play comp, he'll immediately get up and walk into the living room to the computer, pointing and saying "this! this! this!" because that's where the music comes from.

• Oneohtrix Point Never: Returnal
  

Low à la Route du Rock

Thanks to StanM at ILM for giving me a heads up to this: an hour-long set from Low. Sounds great, well shot, and they open with my favorite song from C'mon (fyi, arguably my favorite album of the year so far). The rest of the set is almost entirely from their last three albums:

Nothing But Heart
Nightingale
You See Everything
Monkey
Silver Rider
Especially Me
Sunflower
Try To Sleep
Canada
Violent Past
Last Snowstorm of the Year
Murderer

This Week's Soundtrack

The Andrews Sisters: 50th Anniversary Collection Volume One
Tom T. Hall: Country Songs for Children (2)
The Radio Dept: Lesser Matters and Passive Aggressive: Singles 2002–2010
The Ruby Suns: Sea Lion
Willie Nelson: Teatro

I'm a few days late with this due to being on vacation for a few days. Oddly, it was a vacation with no music—not counting all the songs at Disneyland. But I didn't take any music with me and we didn't listen to any on the drive, either.

Favorite Downloads: August

After months and months of scrolling through the muddle that is my RSS feed, I finally weeded out a bunch of blogs that I realize I'm just never interested in, and I also created a new sub-category for "trustworthy sources," which are the six or so blogs that, for me, consistently display solid taste. Now it's a lot easier for me to make sure I don't scroll past those posts that have a high chance of scratching my itch. For most of the tracks below, I've included my source; if you like what you hear, check those links for more from the same artists, or nice mixes, or just a heads up that you should be following those blogs regularly.

All that said, this month's mix of favorite downloads is a little more packed than usual. This month's batch is heavy on 2011 releases (though a few from '67, '68, '71, '07, '10 sneak in too). As with every month, it's meant to be listened to in order, so click the play button in the corner and let it go for the next 67 minutes or so. If you like psyche, ambient, nü-kosmiche, and good ol' fashioned songwriters, there oughta be something in here for you.

• Unknown Mortal Orchestra: Thought Ballune [via Aquarium Drunkard]
• Bo Grumpus: Yesterday's Streets [via The Rising Storm]
• Woodsman: Tone Cloak [via Altered Zones]
• Tinariwen: Tenere Taqqim Tossam [via Aquarium Drunkard]
• Cass McCombs: The Same Thing
• Digits: Because It's Wrong [via 20jazzfunkgreats]
• Rene Hell: Med School Prince [via Altered Zones]
• Harmonizer: 5th World [via Altered Zones]
• Graham Nash: I Used To Be A King [via For the Sake of the Song]
• Jasper TX: Summer [via Swan Fungus]
• Beirut: East Harlem
• Dave Van Ronk & the Hudson Dusters: Both Sides Now [via The Rising Storm]